


Altered States

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Christmastime, M/M, good omens exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-17
Updated: 2008-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1210591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What goes around comes around—often in the dead of night, drunk on Chateau Margaux 1787, and without ringing first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Altered States

_THEN_   
  
To begin with, the serpent didn't especially _mind_ being... Well. A serpent. He'd considered the root of the word, the connotations pouring from that simple present participle like bindweed over a wall:   
  
_Something which creeps_   
  
To which he might add the following:   
  
_2\. Probably the fastest Creature in existence  
  
3\. Also, quick-witted  
  
4\. Handsome_   
  
And these weren't untrue. Certainly he'd seen the way the lesser snakes and reptiles stared at him, no doubt to admire his inherent sense of place, his predisposition towards stealth, his natural good health, and his long (quite long) list of interests, pastimes, preferences, and hobbies.   
  
The way he saw it, this whole Garden lark was all about expanding one's horizons.   
  
(He'd never before fancied himself the canasta type.)   
  
Yet most of the time there was little choice but to engage in that most primal of activities: hanging about. In tall grass, near short grass; on tree boughs, around tree trunks. Or, conversely, moving between grass and boughs and boughs and grass until again there was little choice but to make something of a game of it, marking his pace, counting his pulse, luxuriating in the touch of ground on his belly and all the tapered way to the tip of his tail.   
  
So yes, he was fast. Of course he was fast.   
  
Observe yonder field mouse. The serpent was faster. That proud, fat mallard? The serpent could take him.   
  
Indeed, it got to the point where he hardly recognized his own progress. He found himself travelling from Point A to Point B with such assurance and accuracy as to not to require a second thought before he set out. It was as though his body was truly an extension of his thoughts. A perfect vehicle.   
  
Well, perfect but for this: he needed to refuel.   
  
This invariably involved gagging down a dodgy assortment of berries and seeds foraged from the Garden floor. Good for digestion and plant reproduction, right? Except every once in a while, he set his scope a little higher—namely six feet, or six-one-ish, taking into account the subtle advantages of muddy feet and windswept hair. "Wassat?"   
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"What've you got there?"   
  
The angel looked at the serpent. Then he looked down at the wilting elephant leaf which served as a platter. Then he looked at the serpent. "Toast," he said. "With jam."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Leave it to the flaming sword, I always say," said the angel. "Never without a hot meal."   
  
"I guess so," said the serpent.   
  
In fact, the toast looked more like a large blackened bookend than a delicious alternative to berries and seeds. The angel wiped ash from his fingertips. "Lovely day," he said, a little exhaustedly.   
  
"Is it?"   
  
"Well. The sun is shining just so. And the air is blowing as such. Do you see?"   
  
The serpent didn't see. In fact, he missed seeing it so completely as to be unaware of anything but this: toast. With jam.   
  
He snatched it from the angel's lap and swallowed it whole. The crust was a bit rough in the going when it reached his throat, but the jam—so _that_ was rhubarb—yes, the jam was immensely enjoyable.   
  
"You!" said the angel.   
  
"Me." The serpent fell back and was gone, quick as you like, though he only bothered to go as far as the bramble patch some twenty yards away. Still licking his lips, he marvelled at the feeling of having been noticed and if not wanted, definitely sought after.   
  
Sure, the angel looked none too pleased. But he wasn't livid. If the serpent could trust his eye (he did), he would have to say the angel, hand splayed across his breast as he calmed his breathing, had been _surprised_.   
  
Forget about expanding that horizon. Come Heathrow or high water, the serpent would demolish the blasted thing.   
  
That was Tuesday.   
  
This was Wednesday: when the angel walked past the bramble, the serpent was waiting for him.   
  
The serpent smiled. Not deceitfully, but nor with any genuine goodwill. It was just a regular sort of expression, bland, like those exchanged by faint acquaintances on a busy street, after which both parties are left scratching their heads with a nagging sense of disorganization: the single molecule of social amnesia which, when left to ferment, would lead to later, grosser acts of forgetfulness at weddings and reunions.   
  
All in all, the serpent thought, it wasn't a bad skill to master.   
  
He waited. Three, two, one—   
  
"You've something in your teeth," said the angel. Just like that. No preamble. No congratulations for the noble attempt before dealing the death-blow. "What is that? Gecko?"   
  
The serpent sniffed. He did this close-mouthed, his eyes narrowed and jaw clenched as he worked his tongue at the bit of gristle (mustn't it be gristle? Surely he'd not eaten any spinach that day) lodged between his incisors.   
  
The whole thing took a minute or two. By the time he'd reassured himself he was in the clear, the angel had wandered off towards the river—was in fact _puttering about_ by an upended log on the shore, all the while exhibiting the sort of frank, casual absentmindedness that only came with years of practice.   
  
Of all the ridiculous...   
  
"It was frog, actually." And then, when the angel still failed to look up (he'd suddenly become engrossed in pulling a loose thread from his robe), and the serpent had raised himself to his full height of three-foot-seven-and-eleven-sixteenths, "Hallo?"   
  
The angel scrunched his nose. This was quite the most unattractive thing the serpent had ever seen: the flesh about the angel's brow was in turn blanched and puckered pink, and his mouth curled up in distaste. His eyes, on the other hand, were intelligent and clear.   
  
The serpent's whole heart went out to him at once: he'd never survive in the wild.   
  
"Er. Did you say something?" asked the angel.   
  
"It was frog," the serpent repeated.   
  
"Frog?"   
  
"Yeah, you know. Sort of small, slippery thing. Bluish. Cause a regular row with their croaking every night."   
  
"Gracious. And not a drop of garlic sauce?"   
  
"No."   
  
"Pity," said the angel. Then his expression shifted. "You're moulting."   
  
"Leave off," the serpent huffed.   
  
"No, really." A nod towards the glinting surface of the water, and then, "See for yourself."   
  
The serpent did. "Oh," he agreed. Here and there about his head, paper-thin bits of scale were coming dislodged, jutting out, and larger clumps curled haphazardly downwards. The skin beneath was violently green and sleek as glass.   
  
Suddenly, a spindling sensation rose up from his guts, and he supposed, irrationally, that this had all happened before. But so long ago. Surely long enough to make not a scrap of difference now. He shook himself. "'S a good look for me, don't you think? Or don't you?"   
  
"My dear..." The angel reached a tentative hand forward, pausing just before he stroked the serpent's back. "Aren't you worried about what you might become?"   
  
The serpent tilted his head, still staring at his reflection. "I'm not worried about anything."   
  
***   
  
_NOW_   
  
Thing of it was, Aziraphale wasn't exactly bothered about being... Um. A passenger. He'd gone through the myriad possibilities granted to the modern voyager, thought on the busses and railways and taxis. But time and again, he returned to the simplest option, and that was this: the Bentley. And by proxy, Crowley.   
  
Neither of which flummoxed Aziraphale in the slightest. He had long ago taken it for granted that if Crowley didn't _want_ to drive Aziraphale to the shops, he quite simply _wouldn't_.   
  
And besides, Aziraphale couldn't help but admit that at its core, the Bentley was comfortable.   
  
To which he might append:   
  
_2\. No petrol (+3 for the environment)  
  
3\. Conversation (+5 for Rushdie's new one)  
  
4\. Speed_   
  
With special marks to the latter. Certainly, it wasn't so long ago that he would have preferred a lunch of deep-fried Mills & Boone to a zippy ride through motor-crammed byways, and at Christmas, the byways were nothing if not crammed. But with a hand so steady as to rival an Italian Master's penmanship instructor, Crowley got them to their destination, whole and happy.   
  
Which was how they came to be double-parked in front of Marks and Spencer with a rather ghastly line of honking, flashing, _simmering_ cars halted behind them. But inside the Bentley, Gould tinkled Bach, warm light from the neighbouring shop window spilled mauve through the rain-speckled windscreen, and Aziraphale contentedly reknotted the scarf at his throat.   
  
"Have you heard a word I've just said?" Crowley glared over the rims of his sunglasses, hand hovering just above the gearshift. "I don't have all night."   
  
"Of course not," said Aziraphale.   
  
"There are other things I need to see to."   
  
"Yes."   
  
"You've fifteen minutes. If it's thirty—and I still stand by that—as it was at Debenhams, I'm leaving. Gone. Kaput."   
  
Aziraphale smiled. "I'll not be a moment."   
  
" _Fifteen_ minutes, angel," Crowley repeated.   
  
"Right-o." Aziraphale began unfolding himself from the passenger seat.   
  
"And Aziraphale?"   
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"Your jumper's on inside-out."   
  
Aziraphale took fourteen minutes. Here is what he accomplished: one pair, tartan pyjamas. These were for himself. He'd already found Crowley a gift, and some months ago it arrived on his stoop in a hulking wooden crate from a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska.   
  
Of course Aziraphale didn't play pinball. Nor had he seen a single blessed James Bond film. But something told him—no accounting for it—that Crowley did, and had.   
  
Before hauling it to a closet for safekeeping, he'd rigged it to run without change.   
  
"Sir?"   
  
Aziraphale looked up. "Yes, my dear?"   
  
"Is there anything else?" asked the clerk. She drummed her fingertips on the counter, but smiled, a little tiredly, a little impatiently, and with no genuine goodwill.   
  
"Just this," said Aziraphale. He set down two packages of Garibaldis, a box of pink wafers, and a tray of assorted chocolates, which (a while later) would miraculously all be filled with hazelnut crème, save those (later still) filled with a sugary dollop of jam.   
  
The clerk's eyes widened. "Didn't know they still made these," she said.   
  
"They don't."   
  
Aziraphale proffered a few crumpled notes, a couple of coins, and scooped up his parcels. Outside, it had started to rain a little harder, and puddles were forming between raised cracks in the pavement, but there, solid and dark and partially obscured by a plume of exhaust, sat the Bentley.   
  
Crowley looked up, relief flooding his features. For an instant, he seemed to glow with it. But then he took up a scowl, as familiar and worn as an old winter coat, yet still viable and warm.   
  
He made a great show of checking his watch as Aziraphale slid inside, but said nothing. Indeed, the pink tip of his tongue, darting over his lips, made speech nigh impossible.   
  
"All right?" Aziraphale asked. And then, noticing a tiny brown smudge to the side of Crowley's mouth, "Were you eating?"   
  
"Nothing else to do," Crowley said and fisted the handbrake. "Although there were some nuns across the street. A gaggle of fat Sisters collecting for charity. They do it for the children, you know. And I—"   
  
Aziraphale sniffed the air. "You've got into the Nutella again, haven't you?"   
  
"Don't be ridiculous."   
  
"I'd intended to save that."   
  
"Who for?"   
  
"No one."   
  
"Then you've nothing to worry about."   
  
The Bentley bounded through a crossroads.   
  
Aziraphale sniffed. "Fine," he said. "If you must know..."   
  
"Yes?"   
  
"It was for Gabriel."   
  
"Scheduled a luncheon, eh? Good job he didn't decide to just pop round, uninvited."   
  
"No, no. He only makes the appointment so he needn't _make_ the appointment."   
  
Crowley gave a sidelong glance. "Depraved," he said sullenly. He was silent for a beat, chin forward as he studied the road. "My people could learn a thing or two. Although I guess they did. Apple doesn't fall far, and all."   
  
"Mm," Aziraphale agreed. "And did you—"   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Right out of the—"   
  
"Yeah."   
  
Aziraphale blinked. "I see."   
  
"So," Crowley said. "Shop crowded?"   
  
After another fifteen minutes, they were back at the bookstore. Aziraphale took a long moment for reconnaissance: five totes, two parcels, a satchel, and a hat box. (This contained a set of novelty playing cards.) All in all, not a bad haul.   
  
But now Crowley, having been quicker to evacuate, stood by the shop front, shoulders a trifle hunched as he huddled into his collar. He scrunched his nose, and then, yes, there it was: a deep, toothy yawn.   
  
One white cloud of Crowley's air dissipated into the night.   
  
And for a second, just a second, he looked foreign and drawn, a thing at once too precious and too great for his garb, heavy with the weight of it until the scope of him had been doused in fine but drab layers of fabric and thread.   
  
Aziraphale didn't even wait until they were through the door to kiss him, but rather pulled Crowley close, closer for his surprise—jingling the keys: what could possibly be wrong with the lock?—before the tinny bell fastened to the hinge above them heralded their entrance.   
  
He set his bags to the side, toed the door closed, and then proceeded to divest Crowley of his ulster, one arm and then the other until it fell from his shoulders in a shapeless heap. Next came his jacket, off as promptly as the other.   
  
"Eh!" Crowley protested, drawing back. "That's Armani."   
  
"The floor's clean," Aziraphale panted.   
  
"Yeah?" Not quite gently, Crowley pulled him to the carpet, hands moving in short movements as he unbuttoned Aziraphale's jumper and shirt, then began to work on his belt and zip. "Angel," he said. He ran his tongue over the pale flesh of Aziraphale's chest, and leaned down (he was always lighter than Aziraphale supposed) to tease a nipple, an earlobe.   
  
Crowley laughed, a little manically.   
  
In his defense, he'd spent no small number of hours cooped in the car.   
  
Again he laughed as Aziraphale pushed him forward, coaxing him to the side until their positions were reversed. But by the time he'd at last tugged Crowley's trousers and pants down his legs and off, Crowley was perfectly quiet but for the occasional unsteady, rasping gasp, the sporadic thrusts of his hips to seek and find contact, his erection pressing at Aziraphale's belly.   
  
Aziraphale's clothes, all the remaining tweed and leather and dozy, warm wool, were gone with a thought.   
  
Skin to skin, they moved: curious and imperfect. Close, common. Constant.   
  
And later, Aziraphale had to admit, also a bit daft. Despite his claim, he'd not swept in years, having fully believed that some things simply took care of themselves.   
  
Crowley grimaced, running a hand through his hair. Dust dropped and scattered from every direction. "Please tell me you're joking," he said.   
  
"I don't know," said Aziraphale. "I find it rather fetching."


End file.
